


shrugging off the dust and memory

by infinitefire



Category: Salvation (TV)
Genre: F/M, i don't know how to tag i'm so sorry, zoe/dylan is more platonic than romantic but it's still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-21 07:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11939133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitefire/pseuds/infinitefire
Summary: Grace and Harris haven't spoken in weeks, not since Grace transferred out of the Pentagon, and even then, not properly since the world was saved. They haven't had the chance, and neither really wants to anyways, but some things can't just go without being discussed, especially when Dylan and Zoe are at the same protest—and both are arrested.





	shrugging off the dust and memory

**Author's Note:**

> alright i'm not even expecting to get any views on this but i'm posting it anyway because if singlehandedly doubling the amount of content for a fandom is something that seems like a feasible goal then someone's gotta do something. this set after the series ends (or will end i guess), but was written only considering canon events through episode 9 because that's all there is for now. i really like the whole grace/harris/zoe/dylan dynamic, so here's a thing! that i wrote! although some credit goes to my friend, because we were giving each other story prompts when this [vaguely gestures towards fic] happened (and also thanks to her for editing). i'm leaving it as a oneshot for now, but if inspiration strikes (and anyone actually wants to read it, or even halfheartedly glance at it once) i might add more. ANYWAY you've suffered through enough of my awkward insecure rambling so go! read! enjoy!

On a crisp December day in 2017, a group of young protesters is arrested for disturbing the peace, refusal to comply with authority, and resisting arrest, among other charges which vary by individual. It is because of this event that two human beings are headed toward the same place at the same time for extraordinarily similar reasons. Continuing on their current paths in their current state of mind, Harris Edwards and Grace Barrows are set to collide, quite literally, at approximately midday, as they set out to deal with the situation both their children have put themselves in.

She walks directly into him, her mind having wandered to some other factor of stress in her life, and barely manages to steady herself on a nearby chair rather than fall on the ground and make an even greater disaster of herself. "I'm so sorry," she blurts.

"Are you okay, m—" begins the man in question as he turns to face the person who nearly knocked him over.

Upon seeing the woman, the expression on his face morphs from one of concern to one which conceals whatever emotion he happens to be feeling. "Grace," he says stiffly.

"Harris," she returns.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. His tone indicates ever so clearly how much he absolutely does not want to be in conversation with Grace Barrows.

"Damage control. Zoe took part in the protest."

"Yeah, Dylan too. What are the odds?" There is far more than a hint of disdain in his voice as he says the last part.

Grace pauses to think for a moment. "Harris, have you eaten today?" she asks, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Why is it any of your business?"

"Let me take you out to lunch."

"And why would I do that?"

"Harris, please. You and I both know we have to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about."

She exhales. "Look, I know you don't want to talk to me. But unless we face what happened during the Samson crisis, we're never gonna move on."

 

* * *

 

Zoe Barrows sits in the corner of a jail cell, away from the center, where a group of ten to twenty or so people her age sit in a circle with their eyes closed while a girl with blue hair and several piercings walks around tapping each of them on the head. Zoe just barely processes the voice of the blue-haired girl saying "Mafia, wake up" as a distant echo. Her mind is focused on the dark looming question she wishes she could ignore: _what now?_

She knew there was a chance this would happen when she agreed to take part in the protest with Dylan. She understood the risks. But even though she doesn't regret her decision, she's not sure whether she's ready for the consequences.

Instinctively, she turns her head when she notices someone standing up to leave the circle. "Keep playing without me," he says, then begins walking in Zoe's direction. "Oh, and by the way, I was Batman!" he adds.

He sits down next to her. "Are you okay?" he asks.

Zoe decides to tell the truth. "Not really."

"Wanna talk about it?"

She lets out a deep, shaky breath. "I'm just scared this'll ruin all my plans for the future. What if I can't go to college anymore, or I can't get a job, and I end up stuck before I can even go anywhere?"

"That's not gonna happen," he reassures her. "I've done this at least five times, and the only part of my life it's ruined is my relationship with my dad."

"Do you think it'll ruin my relationship with my mom?"

"I hope not."

"Thanks, Dylan."

"No problem."

 

* * *

 

Grace and Harris find a small restaurant nearby, where they sit across from each other, neither daring to be the first to speak. For several minutes they simply stare at one another, lacking the words with which to weave a bridge across the gap between them.

"I'm sorry," says Grace eventually, capturing the attention of Harris, who was staring out the window. "I lied to you, I stole from you, I betrayed you, I kept secrets from you, I suspected you of hiring someone to kill me . . . and above all, I hurt you." A second's pause. "And the amount of damage that meteor would have done could never compare to how much I regret what I did to you."

"Don't say that, Grace," says Harris immediately. His tone is no longer the stiff, emotionless one he spoke with earlier, but one betraying care, as if it still matters to him how Grace feels, and hurt, as if he has been bottling up every emotion he's felt since he last saw her and the pain is finally threatening to spill over. "However sorry you are, it could never be worth the destruction of the entire planet."

Grace nods and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously.

The seconds seem to crawl by endlessly as silence grows between them once again.

"What do you want me to say, Harris?" she almost cries. She looks as if she is begging for the tears to be released from her eyes.

"The truth," says Harris, his voice broken. "Why did you do the things you did?"

Grace's eyes close as she holds back sobs. "I felt powerless," she says at last. "The world was about to end and all the people I thought I could trust had been lying to me. Then I was supposed to just sit back and watch as you all tried and failed to find a way to save everyone." She pauses to wipe a tear from her eye. "So I placed all my trust with Darius Tanz, because I wanted to believe that everyone could be saved. I did what he asked because I felt like I was doing something to help save the world . . . and I lied because you were lying, and it gave you power, and I wanted to have that power too."

For the first time in months, Harris looks her in the eye.

"I'm sorry too, Grace," he says sincerely. "I promised you no more secrets, even though I knew that with my job, it was a promise I couldn't keep."

"If we're still talking after this, promise me," says Grace, "no more secrets except the government ones."

Harris lets out a light chuckle. "No more secrets except the government ones," he repeats.

"And no more lies."

"No more lies."

Their food is placed in front of them just as Grace's phone buzzes in her pocket. She checks it to find a text reminding her of the situation which ended her up crying over lunch with her ex-boyfriend.

"Mmm, I still have to deal with Zoe," she whines.

"And I have to deal with Dylan," sighs Harris.

"I don't know what to do." Grace looks into his eyes intently, like if she looked deep enough she would find answers. "This is so unlike her. She's never done anything like this before. How do I handle this without losing her?"

"I don't know," he admits sadly, looking down at his plate. "I've already lost Dylan."

They eat in relative silence for a while, the air still heavy with the burden they carry despite the occasional light small talk about the food, their lives, and such things carefully chosen so as to avoid any topic related to the mess that is their relationship. When the point comes where they have exhausted all topics save for whatever it is between them and their children's current predicament, they order drinks to lighten the weight of the conversation.

"What are we gonna do, Harris?" she asks, looking up at the ceiling.

"We'll figure it out," he reassures her.

She gazes at him hopefully with wide, blue eyes. "Together?"

He smiles—really, genuinely smiles—and reaches his hand across the table to clasp it with hers. "Together."

 

* * *

 

They're in Harris's living room, Grace and Harris seated a bit too closely next to each other with Zoe and Dylan on the opposite sofa, each across from their respective parent. It is, to say the least, insufferably awkward. Though Grace and Harris hadn't gone fully public with their relationship before the (literally) earth-shattering meteor crisis and Darius fucking Tanz came between them, both their children knew there was something going on between them, and when Grace finally got her request to be transferred from the Pentagon, but no relationship was brought into the open, they were left to make their own assumptions.

"So, you two know each other," begins Grace.

"Uhhh . . . yeah . . ." is Zoe's articulate reply.

"We crossed paths," supplies Dylan, cutting Zoe off before she has the chance to share the full truth.

"Crossed paths where, exactly?"

"Social media," says Zoe casually. It's not exactly a lie, but neither is it the truth. Either way, it's solid enough to be believable, because the subject is dropped, making way for one of a seemingly endless amount of long, awkward silences.

Zoe is the one to break it. "So . . . are you two . . . dating?" she inquires, looking directly at her mother and Harris. It's quite bold, especially considering she was just arrested, but it's what everyone is wondering, especially the couple in question.

Wrong timing. "We're not here to discuss Grace and my relationship," states Harris.

"We're here to discuss how you two just got arrested," continues Grace, as if they are accustomed to finishing each other's sentences (though in reality, this time it was two sentences which might, if written out, be separated by a semicolon).

"Right, and we're doing this together, because that totally doesn't imply any sort of relationship other than two people who used to work together," Zoe remarks.

"Zoe," says Grace, giving her daughter a _this-is-serious_ kind of look.

"Just saying," she responds, putting her hands up defensively.

"Anyway, what do you want us to tell you?" asks Dylan, sounding almost jaded from having had this conversation so many times with his father.

"Let's start with how you two got arrested," Harris suggests, already beginning to get vexed by Dylan's unchanged attitude towards the subject.

Dylan shrugs. "You have the police report."

"We know," says Grace quickly, attempting to divert the possibility of the already tense conversation escalating into an argument. "We want to hear it from you."

He sighs. "We were protesting. Someone didn't like it. Things got violent. We tried not to get ourselves killed. What else?" Dylan's voice seems to radiate boredom, but he answers the question nonetheless.

"Zoe, anything you'd like to add?" asks Grace, turning back to her daughter, her voice gentle as ever despite the gravity of the situation.

"I'm . . . sorry?" From the tone of her voice, it sounds like she is guessing, but the look on her face seems genuinely guilty.

Dylan turns toward his friend. "Why are you sorry? We did the right thing," he says, the conviction in his tone unwavering.

Zoe replies before anyone could challenge him. "I guess, but the violence still happened. I guess I feel responsible in some way."

"That's understandable, Zoe, but the only violence you're responsible for is the violence you start," says Grace in her reassuring voice, fluent in the practice of putting concerns to rest.

"Unless you encourage it," adds Harris, looking very pointedly at his son.

"I told you, Dad, we didn't do anything wrong," Dylan insists.

"Assault of an armed officer? Resisting arrest? How exactly is that not doing anything wrong?"

Grace lays a hand on Harris's arm. "Harris," she says softly, soothingly, her wide eyes giving him a warning look that is at the same time gentle, understanding, even loving.

Harris takes a deep breath and looks at her with an almost hidden glint of affection in his eye. "Thank you, Grace."

Zoe and Dylan share a look.

It takes a certain difficulty for Harris to continue as he does. "Dylan, I told you I wanted to be a better father. I want to hear your side of the story."

Reluctantly, Dylan nods. "The police came to the protest, told us to move, said we were being disruptive. We refused. Officer tried to grab me. I shoved him away. It turned into a fight. Then I got arrested."

Harris shakes his head curiously. "But why resist?"

"Because going down without a fight isn't how change gets made," says Dylan with overpowering determination.

Slowly, Harris begins to nod, and the four sit in silence for a few moments before Grace speaks up.

"Zoe? Did you want to say anything?"

Zoe hesitates for a moment before she speaks. "I don't really know what happened; one minute we were protesting, and then someone tried to grab me, and I didn't know who it was, and I was scared, so I tried to get away, and then suddenly, I was getting arrested."

"I don't mean to put pressure on you, but if you had realized it was a police officer trying to grab you, would you still have resisted?"

The answer is quiet, but it is the truth. "I don't know."

Harris opens his mouth to speak, then hesitates for a moment, trying to put together the words. "Zoe," he says, "I'm sorry if this is out of place, but I need to know—did Dylan drag you into this?"

The look on Dylan's face upon hearing this is full of rage, as if he is about to scream, but before he can so much as start to produce a sound, Zoe says with more confidence than she's had in a while, "No. I came into this willingly."

Harris nods with a polite smile. "Okay."

He and Grace look at each other, back at their children, and back and forth a few more times in yet another awkward silence before Harris clears his throat and says to Dylan, "Well, I'll need to contact your mother about this." He takes out his phone as if preparing to call someone.

"And I'll need to contact your dad," says Grace to Zoe, mimicking his actions.

Dylan stands and glances at the door. "I should go check up on everyone else," he says.

Harris nods, confirming that he is dismissed.

"Yeah, me too," says Zoe, beginning to stand up herself.

"Okay," Grace responds, looking up from her phone and at her daughter.

"How long do you think it'll take for them to get back together?" asks Zoe the moment she and Dylan are out the door.

"If they aren't already?"

"Right, of course."

Dylan rolls his eyes. "Who knows?" After a moment, "Who cares?" he adds.

"Look at them, they can't even admit it to themselves when they like someone. At this rate, they're never gonna tell us anything," says Zoe. "They have to start somewhere."

"What are you suggesting?"

"We could . . . you know . . . nudge them in the right direction . . ."

Dylan smirks.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! please leave a comment, express your feelings through a keysmash, fill up the character limit with "AAAAAA", tear it apart with detailed criticism longer than the writing itself, leave more virtual kudos, reference an entirely unrelated meme, point out that one very specific place where i should have added a comma, say anything you have to say even if it's just "i liked it" or "it was trash" or "that was ooc bro" or "meh" !


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